Calumet "K" eBook

Pete and Max came in together soon with the napkins,
and a little time slipped by before Bannon could draw
Max aside and grip his hand. Then they went at
the napkins, and as they sat around the table, Hilda
and Bannon, Pete and the waiters, folding them with
rapid fingers, Bannon found opportunity to talk to
her in a low voice, during the times when Pete was
whistling, or was chaffing with the waiters. He
told her, a few words at a time, of the new work Mr.
MacBride had assigned to him, and in his enthusiasm
he gave her a little idea of what it would mean to
him, this opportunity to build an elevator the like
of which had never been seen in the country before,
and which would be watched by engineers from New York
to San Francisco. He told her, too, something
about the work, how it had been discovered that piles
could be made of concrete and driven into the ground
with a pile driver, and that neither beams nor girders—­none
of the timbers, in fact—­were needed in
this new construction. He was nearly through
with it, and still he did not notice the uncertain
expression in her eyes.

It was not until she asked in a faltering undertone,
“When are you going to begin?” that it
came to him. And then he looked at her so long
that Pete began to notice, and she had to touch his
foot with hers under the table to get him to turn
away. He had forgotten all about the vacation
and the St. Lawrence trip.

Hilda saw, in her side glances, the gloomy expression
that had settled upon his face; and she recovered
her spirits first.

“It’s all right,” she whispered;
“I don’t care.”

Max came up then, from a talk with James out on the
stairway, and for a few moments there was no chance
to reply. But after Bannon had caught Max’s
signals to step out of hearing of the others, and before
he had risen, there was a moment when Pete’s
attention was drawn by one of the waiters, and he
said:—­

“Can you go with me—­Monday?”

She looked frightened, and the blood rose in her cheeks
so that she had to bend low over her pile of napkins.

“Will you?” He was pushing back his chair.

She did not look up, but her head nodded once with
a little jerk.

“And you’ll stay for the dinner, won’t
you—­now?”

She nodded once more, and Bannon went to join Max.

Max made two false starts before he could get his
words out in the proper order.

“Say,” he finally said; “I thought
maybe you wouldn’t care if I told James.
He thinks you’re all right, you know. And
he says, if you don’t care, he’d like
to say a little something about it when he makes his
speech. Not much, you know—­nothing
you wouldn’t like—­he says it would
tickle the boys right down to their corns.”

Bannon looked around toward Hilda, and slowly shook
his head.

“Max,” he replied, “if anybody says
a word about it at this dinner I’ll break his
head.”

That should have been enough, but when James’
turn came to speak, after nearly two hours of eating
and singing and laughing and riotous good cheer, he
began in a way that brought Bannon’s eyes quickly
upon him.